Ross Perot on Corporations

1992 & 1996 Reform Party Nominee for President

Build something better and money follows

The best way to make money is not to have making money as your primary goal. I've seen great people primarily motivated to make money. Almost without exception, they failed. They missed the real essence of learning to do something well, of building
something better than anyone else.

If you learn to do something better than anyone else, you will find that financial success comes as a byproduct. This has been certainly true in my case to a unique degree. Making money has never been one of my goals.
If we had set out to create a vehicle to make money, I don't believe we would have been successful at all. Instead, we set out to build a great company made up of great people.

Don't expect the financial rewards to come quickly or easily. You would
probably consider me to be quite successful at an early age. It took me 15 years to build up to an income that substantially exceeded our family's monthly needs. Unrealistic expectations can damage your effectiveness and potential.

Top US executives overpaid compared to foreign competitors

In Japan, the upper level managers earn about 18 times more than the average Japanese worker. In Germany, itís about 25 times. In the US, the upper level managers in our largest corporations get paid almost 120 times more than the average
American worker earns.

Theoretically, the compensation of most upper level management in US companies is tied to the performance of their company. But in fact, bonuses get paid even though the company didnít have a good year.
Thatís not good for the companies; thatís not good for stockholders; thatís not good for the country. It may be time for board members to exercise a lot more discretion when determining compensation for the managers of our domestic companies.

If these management guys want to make the really big bucks, they need to be TV anchormen, basketball players, or rock stars. Overpaying company executives damages morale and splits the team. Our overseas competitors understand this.

Increase business fees and business tax collection

We need to improve the collection of taxes from foreign corporations doing business in the US. As it stands now, we might as well send invitations to set up operations in this country. Actually, through the help of their Washington lobbyists, foreign
companies often write their own invitations. We can pick up an additional $21 billion by improving the collection of taxes from foreign-owned companies doing business here.

We can save $16 billion a year by reducing the business entertainment deduction from 80% of the cost for entertainment to 50% of the cost.

We can bring in an extra $12 billion by increasing certain user fees and imposing new user fees for many of the
assets and services now provided by the federal government, such as the inland waterways and air traffic control services. We shouldn't be reluctant to charge a fair price for these items simply because we haven't done so in the past.